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Tuesday, February 7, 2017

The story of the colon that tried to kill me.

If you are easily grossed out, or like to make fun of people who grow things in their butt, please skip this blog post. It's a doozy.

Most of you
know that I got violently ill with a bacterial infection over our Christmas
holiday in Boracay, Philippines, and that I struggled for about a month to get
over it. During this time I missed most of a trip to Boracay, had to cancel a trip to Saipan, had about a dozen and
a half I.V.'s, and stayed in the hospital twice. Ick. What a crappy (and expensive) winter.
What you might not know is that my husband and I went to bed last night thanking God
for that disgusting infection, because it kinda saved my life.

Here's where
this tangent becomes a doozy. Prior to getting sick in Boracay, last summer I'd
had the onset of some small symptoms of a gross and embarrassing nature. As a
mother of four children born from vaginal births, I assumed I was having
hemorrhoid issues, which has been commonplace for me over the years, so I'd
made the decision not to pursue it with a doctor until I was back living in the
USA--eighteen months from now. I know, I know. Who ignores bleeding from
*there*? Well, you'd be surprised. And I'm almost certain you yourself have
ignored symptoms in the past out of embarrassment or laziness. So yeah. That's
what I did.

Fast forward
to after we came home from Boracay...my doctor friend tried diligently to help me
recover from that nasty infection, but once it got to my intestines, it
stalled. The bleeding increased to alarming proportions, and I (finally)
confessed to Kyung Shin what was happening and how alarmed Monte and I were
getting. She sent me to the hospital for treatment and tests, where I was given
a CT scan. During this scan, they noticed polyps, and upon my release, I was
told to come back in a week for a follow up appointment to schedule a
colonoscopy if my infection (and diarrhea of Dumb & Dumber proportions) had
cleared up enough to, erm, go in.

This is actually about 1/10 of what I did about 15 times daily. Nope. Not kidding.

The hubby and went
to my follow up feeling pretty chipper. I was feeling better, the bathroom
issues were clearing up, I no longer laid on the floor, curled in a ball, crying all the time.
We walked into the gastroenterologist' office laughing and joking, talking about
stopping for burgers on the way home, since we didn't have the kids with us.
But when the doctor started talking, crap got serious, real fast. In his broken
English he explained the severity of the situation. Key words stuck out to me:
tumor, large, bad, immediate, rectum, cancer, dangerous. The room spun, and I turned to my husband, cracking up, crying, and said, "I have a tumor in my ***
hole. I'm going to go out Farrah Fawcett style." The doctor and Monte
exchanged a look that clearly said she's losing it, and the doctor said
"I'm very sorry." Long and short of it: I had a large tumor on the
lower part of my intestine, upper part of my rectum and it had to come out
stat.

We had to
schedule an immediate tumor removal. The doctor wanted to do it the following
Tuesday (it was Friday,) which meant I'd have to check into the hospital the
coming Monday. He would, erm, go in colonoscopy style to try to remove it, but
if it was presenting itself as flatter and deeper, rather than bulbous and off
of the surface (sort of like a pimple) then a surgeon would be needed to remove
it, and I would have to stay in the hospital for about 7 days. The doctor said
that once the tumor was out, he would be able to look at it and have an idea of
whether or not it was malignant, but that it would be biopsied to make sure.
After researching colon tumors at home, we learned that the tumors that present
themselves as flatter are usually malignant and invasive. The ones that are up
above the surface are sometimes malignant, but sometimes not, but that the
malignant ones usually had a very distinctive look. My odds were split down the
middle. My age and overall health worked in my favor, but the size of the
tumor, the bleeding, and my family's history with cancer didn't. It was a total
crap shoot. (pun intended.)

We skipped the
burgers on the way home. I texted a few close friends and my brother. Monte and
I discussed things we've never, ever had to discuss before. If I was sick,
where would we fight the cancer? In South Korea, or at home in America? If we
went back to America, how could we afford to fight cancer? Would Obama care
still exist? How would I fight cancer in Korea when I couldn't even get through
recharging our kid's cell phones without getting exasperated? What if. I died?
How would the kids get through life without a mom? How would my husband parent the
kids alone? I would miss graduations, missions, college, weddings,
grandchildren...just the thought of missing out on grandchildren buckled my
knees. I kept telling my husband, "I don't want to die. I'm not done yet!"

Because my husband is out of days off, I had a good friend take me to the hospital that Monday
(Hubby joined me that night), and by Tuesday I was a complete ball of nerves.
I'd planned out a complete meal and before/after school schedule for my husband and
the kids; I'd asked all of my prayer warriors in the USA to throw a good word
in with the Big Guy for me; and I'd spent a lengthy amount of time praying for
myself. I vowed that if He helped me to survive this, I would work harder at
being a good wife, a good mother, and a good disciple. I admitted my flaws and
mistakes and promised God to work harder on them, regardless of what He made
the outcome of my surgery be. It was the lowest of the low for me--being so in
need of a miracle, but feeling so unworthy of one. There's something about the
humility of having a potentially cancerous tumor growing in my BUTT that
finally humbled me enough to break me--so that He could put me back together.

I wish it were that simple.

When they
wheeled me in for the procedure, I started to cry. My doctor--who is
agonizingly blunt and honest--asked me if I was alright. I replied with,
"I'm just really scared." His response? "I am, too." Me:
"THAT DOESN'T HELP AT ALL." Then he asked me to close my eyes,
because they were going to put the sleepy time meds into my I.V., but I was too
nervous to obey him. All I could think about was: what if the tumor is deep,
and I bleed out? What if it's malignant and its aggressive and it's already in
my lungs or liver or something like that? (I'd been wheezing because of the
poor air quality here in Korea, which suddenly convinced me that it'd already
metastasized in my lungs--don't hate. I come from a long line of worriers.)
What if when I woke up again, my family's entire world was off kilter, because
I had the big C? For some reason (I'm assuming it's acute hysteria) I prayed
out loud. I asked God one more time to "please save me." And I asked
my dad, who I'd decided was standing there in ghost form, likely wishing I'd
calm down, to "stay with me." The next thing I remember is waking up.

My doctor.

During the
time I was unconscious, my doctor sent for my husband twice. The first time was to
show him (while I was unconscious with a camera up my butt--thanks, doc!
Privacy Acts can kiss Korea's butt--pun intended.) that the tumor was presenting itself in
the worst possible way. It was flat, only slightly domed, and appeared
deep--which was usually the invasive malignant tumors (see the above tumor diagram.) The doctor told him that he "didn't know if he could remove it" and that it was
"bad." My husband said the doc taken a deep breath, and said a very hesitant
"I'll try." before sending him back to the waiting room, where he'd
sat, fretting that he'd just given the doctor permission to do something he
wouldn't succeed at, and that I was going to bleed too much, and still have to
see the surgeon. This was all in addition to the knowledge that the tumor was
presenting itself in the worst possible way, and had a high probability of
malignancy.

A short while
later, the doctor called for my husband again. Expecting the worst, he'd gone back
into the room, where the doctor had held up a specimen jar proudly. He'd gotten
it out, and it was, as my husband so eloquently put it, big and gross. The doc explained to him that
when he'd injected the area, it'd punctured the tissue, and that the tumor had
just risen right before his eyes, making it simple for him to just hook it
around its neck and snag it out. The doctor, who was feeling quite proud of
himself at that point, said that it "looked good," but we'd send it
for biopsy to know for sure.

This is what I felt like after the tumor removal was over.

Now....I am well
aware the there is probably a medical explanation for what happened during my
procedure. That is not lost on me. You can choose to look at with scientific
goggles or spiritual goggles, and we've chosen spiritual goggles. And here's
why: because despite being told, repeatedly, that the tumor was large and
presenting itself poorly, the minute the doctor slit that tissues, my tumor
rose up and completely changed shape before his eyes. This miracle came after
countless local friends stepped out of their comfort zones to help and assist
my family; dozens of friends and family prayed earnestly for my health; my best
friends' family fasted for me; I asked my deceased dad to stay with me; and I
begged my Father in Heaven to save me. I asked for a miracle--and He gave it,
in the form of a tumor that changed its shape/presentation right in front of my
doctors eyes. This miracle happened to me, and I believe it.

I am a habitual doubter. I hope to change that.

The wait for
our next appointment was a week and a half, and despite having high hopes, my husband and I walked on eggshells. Every conversation we had about the likelihood
of the tumor being benign was overshadowed by two things: the fact that I'd
heard my own parents having the exact same reassuring conversations when my mom
was diagnosed with breast cancer. And second, the fact that in my forty years
on earth, I've dodged about a hundred and twelve bullets, and at some point,
one of those bullets is bound to hit me. It felt foolish to celebrate before we
knew with a surety that I'd somehow dodged that most recent bullet.

We got my
biopsy results yesterday, and the first words my doctor said were:
"congratulations, you can go back to your life now." Oh what joy this
sentence gives. My tumor was benign, and I wasn't going to die anytime soon. Hubby and I breathed a guttural sigh of relief for the first time in weeks, and
we left with a bounce in our steps. For the life of me, I don't know why God
chose to bless me with a miracle, and so many go without. I don't understand
why I was saved (for now,) but so many haven't been. I can't fathom why my
prayers were answered, but so many aren't. The lack of fairness in this
situation is not lost on me. All that I'm meant to understand is that my time
here isn't over, and that this was a wake up call for me to live the way I
promised God I would, eat foods that will keep my body healthy and strong, and
start taking care of soul properly. To ignore that clear point to all of this
pain, and fear, and worry, would be inexplicably foolish. My Father in Heaven
loves me, and for some unfathomable reason, He chose to save me, and I intend
to make it worth His while.

Me, after getting the good news.

For those of
you who are rolling your eyes right now, I invite you to can it. I have a
point. I swear I do. The whole point of my post is
this: if I'd not gotten sick in Boracay, I never would've gone to the doctor
for my, erm, toilet issues. I would have happily ignored it until I got back to
America, and probably for a long time after that, as well. According to my
doctor, because of the already impressive size of my tumor, there was a high
probability that it would've became me cancerous by the time I dealt with it. I
was ignoring something that would've eventually killed me.

I beg each of
you to do one thing for me: listen to your body. If something weird or gross or
painful is happening to you, get it checked out. And no, I don't mean on Web
MD. See your doctor. Put your health first. There are people who love you and
depend on you. Don't put stupid stubbornness before your role as husband, wife,
mom, dad, sister, brother. Take care of yourself because you love them, even if
you struggle loving yourself. Do not ignore what your body is trying to tell
you...occasionally it's not just indigestion (or hemorrhoids). It might
actually be something that can kill you. I'm living proof of that.

If your doctors look like these people, they're probably not real doctors.

Our Father in
Heaven is ready and willing to help you. His love never wanes. He is, quite
literally, always there, and always listening. You might not get the answer
that I got, but He *will* answer you in some form. I'm one of His disciples,
and it's my job to share that message with each of you, the folks that mean the
most to me.